"I dragged myself to the burning bowl that the accursed priestess had brought into the room and sealed my leg wound with its hot coals. Then I blacked out from the pain. When I woke up, the fortress was shaking and trembling. Stone cracked around me, and a hole gaped in the outer wall of the room. I pulled myself to it, narrowly avoiding the slabs of rock that fell from the ceiling. I threw myself through the gap and rolled down the side of the fortress. Its sides leaned crazily, and I slid for dozens of feet before I hit the sand. By Mitra, I know not how my bones held together!"
"Kezankians are made of strong stuff," a grinning Malgoresh commented, nodding sagely.
"Aye, but not as strong as the stuff of Cimmerians! I would have died in the desert had Kaletos not intervened."
Kailash pointed to the man who sat next to him. Conan had forgotten about him in the excitement of seeing the hillman. Kaletos? The name was familiar Madesus's mentor! Conan stared at him curiously. Kaletos looked like a much older version of Madesus. He had only a few strands of white hair left, but his bright green eyes were strangely youthful.
Conan's gaze was drawn to the amulet around Kaletos's neck, reminding him of the amulet he had recovered from the fortress. Conan removed the talisman from its wrappings and handed it to the ancient priest, who accepted it with a look of sorrow.
"How did you find Kailash? Did you follow us through the desert?" Conan asked, mystified.
"Nay," the pale-lipped Kaletos answered in his strange Corinthian accent. "My young friend Madesus bid me to help thee. When he fell to the assassin's blade, I sensed his demise." He raised the amulet that Conan had handed to him. "It was this I followed," he said.
"Did you have horses? Swiftly you traveled, to reach the inn before me!"
"Thy friend will tell thee the tale," the priest said with a wry smile.
As Conan watched, Kaletos's white robes began to shimmer. They gave off an unbearably bright light. Conan blocked the light with his hands and squinted through his fingers, hoping for a glimpse of the priest.
What the Cimmerian saw next, he kept to himself for the rest of his life. Through the dazzling white light, Kaletos's ancient face was changing. The lines of age vanished, though the piercing, wide-set eyes looked the same. A long, patriarchal beard had appeared on his face, and his hair was long and flowing. It was the visage of Mitra, Lord of Light. Before Conan shut his eyes and bowed his head in the overpowering presence, he saw something else.
Beside the white-robed entity, another had appeared. It grasped the amulet and stood smiling for a moment, looking straight at Conan. Then Madesus was whispering to him. "We thank you, Conan. Grieve not for me, for I am now at peace, my worldly tasks done."
Following that, the two vanished in the blink of an eye.
The remaining men stood gaping at each other, speechless. After a few moments of stunned silence, they began talking. No one else in the taproom had seen the white glow, or anything else that the three men had witnessed.
Kailash shook his head. "I remember Kaletos finding me in the desert, feverish and near dead. We had horses, or so I thought, and he took me to a temple, where priests tended to my leg. When I was ready to ride, we made for the inn here."
"Aye, you arrived only this morning!" added Malgoresh.
"On horses?" Conan asked.
"Yes" Kailash paused, as if his memory were troubling him." We tied them outside."
"When I entered, I saw no horses outside," Conan said solemnly.
The Kezankian's face paled. He brooded for a while before speaking again. "A wise man meddles not in the affairs of priests and wizards."
Then he reached for his tankard of ale, smiling.
Lifting his own tankard, Conan nodded in agreement.
Conan the Indomitable
One
A man-high cairn marks the desolate juncture where the lands of Brythunia, Corinthia and Zamora come together. Centuries of wind and rain and snow and sun have worked their hot and cold hands and weathered claws over the pillar, smoothing it into little more than a soft-featured mound of stone rising from the barren ground. The mountain upon which the cairn squats is most always covered with snow, continually subjected to harsh storms, and it draws few visitors intent on seeing a geographical marker of such plain visage.
Upon the narrow snowbound path that passes the cairn walked a man and a woman. Arguing.
"There were horses," the woman said, "but naturally, it never occurred to you to fetch a pair."
The speaker of these words was named Elashi, a beautiful young woman born of the Khauranian desert. While lush of breast, she had the supple muscles and carriage developed by one familiar with hard work, and her legs were firm and slim from much walking. She wore a heavy cloak over a woolen shirt and long woolen skirt against the cold, and her feet were encased in high boots. A short, curved sword dangled from a strap at her left hip.
"Most of the horses were either dead or about to be," her companion said, his voice dry. "Riding a dead horse makes for slow going."
The man was also young, but certainly fully grown. He stood tall and wide-shouldered, with thickly muscled arms and a deep, heavy chest. Clean-shaven, he wore his black hair in a square-cut mane, and his blue eyes seemed to flash with a deep inner fire. Conan his name was, begotten of the fierce barbarian mountain people from the cold lands of Cimmeria far to the north. He too wore a woolen shirt and woolen pants under a winter's cloak and was shod in heavy boots, and the sheathed sword he carried was long and straight, of ancient blued iron, its edges sharped like razors.
"A lot you know," Elashi continued. "I sometimes wonder what, if anything, you are good for, you great barbarian lout!"
Conan shook his head. Since meeting Elashi at the temple of the Suddah Oblates, his life had certainly been less than dull. They had taken up with a beautiful zombie woman, fought a necromancer's blind priests and undead minions, and nearly been skewered a dozen times along the way. He and Elashi had shared sleeping robes for much of the time, but despite that, she continued to harangue him at every opportunity. It seemed that she never tired of extolling his faults, real or imagined.
Conan said, "I heard no complaints last night as the fire dwindled." He grinned widely at her.
After a few seconds, and seemingly against her will, Elashi returned Conan's grin. "Well, I suppose you do ometimes rise to certain occasions." She was silent for half a dozen steps and then said, "But we would have more energy for such alliances had we horses to ride."
"I noticed no lack of energy on my part," Conan said. "And as long as we are wishing for that which we do not have, why not wish for a kingdom and servants? Or perhaps a palace of gold?"
"Oh, you, you―barbarian lout!"
He grinned again as she fell silent. After the death of Neg the Malefic, the necromancer whom Conan had slain, the young Cimmerian and Elashi had agreed to travel together until their paths parted. Conan intended to visit the wicked city of Shadizar, in Zamora, to ply the trade of thief, while Elashi's plans would take her farther south, to her native Khauran. From inquiries along the way thus far, Conan had learned that the route would not be direct; the best road detoured into Corinthia for perhaps several days' journey before looping southeast into Zamora again. Even as he recalled this, the path upon which they trod turned to the west and began to angle down the mountain.
Perhaps there was a village or town ahead in which he could practice his thievery and obtain enough silver for two horses, thereby putting an end to Elashi's constant carping. He certainly hoped it would be so.
Snow lay thick upon the land save for the path, where it had been trodden down. It was winter but clear, the blue skies sharp, the air cold and clean. Conan much enjoyed such places; towns offered much, but the air inside a city stank of odors unknown in the mountains. A man had to balance these things, of course. Meat and wine and lusty companions were more apt to be found in civilization than along a snow-covered trail in the middle of nowhere. While Conan's god Crom lived inside a
mountain, he had never ordained that men were supposed to do the same.
From ahead on the trail there came a noise.
It was a small thing, the sound, and ears less sharp than Conan's would have dismissed it as perhaps a breeze-inspired shrub's rustling or a small rock dislodged by some tiny animal. The big Cimmerian stopped, and listened intently.
"What are you―?"
Conan waved Elashi to silence. When he spoke, his voice was a deep whisper. "Someone waits just ahead, around that large boulder."
Elashi glanced at the house-sized rock Conan had just indicated. "I see no sign of anyone," she said, matching his whisper.
"There was a noise," Conan insisted.
"I heard nothing. And I am a woman of the desert, do not forget."
How could he forget? She reminded him of it at least once daily. "Perhaps you need desert sand for your ears to work properly. I heard a cough."
That earned him a glare that, had it been a blade, would have left him in small and bloody chunks upon the snowy ground. "Listen, you barbarian oaf―"
"No more time for games," he cut her off. He drew his sword. "I sense that we are in danger."
Elashi nodded. Despite her verbal abuse of her companion, she had been with him long enough to understand that his senses were indeed sharper than those of ordinary men. She drew her own sword. "What should we do?"
"You circle behind the rock while I proceed along the trail to draw their attention. That way, you can take them unaware while they watch me."
"I will not!" she said, her whisper increasing in volume. "Just because I am a woman, you seek to shield me from risks! Never forget that I am firstborn."
Conan stared at her, amazed, as if she had suddenly sprouted wings and was preparing to leap up and fly into the heavens. He was young, and he supposed that he would learn more with age, but for the moment he did not think it possible that he would ever understand the motivations of women. Perhaps no man could. "Very well," he said. "You proceed down the trail while I circle behind the rock… and whoever it is that awaits there."
"Better," she said. But after a moment of triumph, her grin faded and she looked nervously at Conan. "You would actually send me along the trail into the jaws of possible death?" Her stare was incredulous and her voice quavered. She acted as if he had spat on her.
Conan shook his head and glanced around at the mountains. Was there some demon hiding out there, sent to bedevil him? And what did Elashi want from him? Disagree with her and she argued. Agree with her and she argued even more. Crom! He felt the heat of anger rise within him.
Fighting to keep his voice level, he said, "All right. What is your suggestion?"
"Keep your voice down," she ordered.
Conan's anger increased as he stared helplessly at her. She was beautiful, to be sure, but maddening!
"You proceed down the path and draw the attention of whoever or whatever is there," she said. "I shall circle around the rock and get behind them. That way, I may take them unaware."
Conan stared, unable to speak in his frustrated rage.
"Isn't that a better plan than the one you had?" she asked sweetly. Warm goat butter would not have dissolved in her mouth, he thought. Surely, surely I have offended some god and this is my punishment. He stood silent for a moment, then stalked off without another word. Whatever was on the other side of that boulder had better not be intent on causing him grief.
When he rounded the shelter of the rock, Conan found himself facing trouble. Five men stood before him; short, muscular, and swarthy, each held a dagger-tipped pike. They wore cracked and sweat-stained leather armor and gauntlets, and heavy boots. Behind these five a single being sat astride a tall black stallion. This creature wore a heavy riding cape, woolen shirt, and leather breeches, and held in a gauntleted hand a thin sword across the front of the horse's saddle.
Conan was somewhat puzzled about this last figure.
At first glance, it seemed a man from its dress and manner; on closer examination, the beardless face was definitely female, this self-evident not merely from its smoothness of complexion but from its shape and the bearer's use of cosmetics. The lips were rouged, the eyebrows partially plucked, and the area around the eyes darkened with a bluish hue. The reddish-brown hair was shorter than Conan's own, and cut feathery on the ends. Additionally, the creature's shirt front jutted out in twin peaks that certainly seemed womanly… but the crotch of the tight leather breeches revealed a bulge than seemed most definitely male.
Conan's examination of the horsed figure was interrupted by its speech. "Stand and deliver!" it said. The voice added to his confusion. It was deep, that of a strong man. Coming from those ruby lips, it sounded most odd indeed.
"Stand and deliver what?" Conan asked. "Are you blind, that I appear to be some fat merchant laden with gold or wares? What you see is all I own, and that is little enough."
"I will have your sword," the figure said.
At that moment Elashi appeared behind the six, clambering up the rock so that she was above them.
Conan swung the sword back and forth to limber his shoulder, then gripped the handle with both hands and aimed the point at the throat of the nearest pikeman, a techinque he had learned from the swordmaster of the Suddah Oblates. "I think not," he said.
The pikeman swallowed dryly.
"Do not be a fool," the horse rider said. "We are six to your one. Give us your sword and live. Refuse and die."
"I find it somewhat strange that you seem willing to lose at least some of your men to collect a sword. Such an exchange is bad business. I think that perhaps there is something else on your mind."
The man-woman laughed, a deep, throaty sound. "Wise, for a savage."
On the boulder, Elashi had put her sword down and was lifting a head-sized rock.
The leader of the bandits leaned forward on the horse. The creak of the saddle leather was loud in the otherwise quiet clearing. "Very well. Then we shall have to obtain that which we wish the hard way. Take him!"
Elashi chose this precise instant to hurl the rock she held. Now the desert woman was not much of a swordswoman, true, and she talked too much for Oman's taste, but apparently the throwing of rocks could be numbered among her skills: the large stone smacked into the head of one of the pikemen, felling him like a poleaxed pig. The sound of the rock striking the skull was much like that of a melon when smashed with a heavy board. That worthy would trouble no one else in this world.
Startled, the pikemen turned to espy this new threat. The rider's mount shied at the sudden movements, backing itself almost to the boulder. Before the rider could turn, Elashi, sword in hand, leaped upon him―or her―screaming.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Conan darted forward, swift for a man so large, and swung the ancient blue-iron blade. The stroke met flesh, cleaving muscle and bone, toppling a second pikeman into a fall that would ultimately end in the Gray Lands―and likely Gehanna.
Elashi and the rider fell from the horse. Conan had time to see the mysterious bandit leader leap up and twist about sharply; the movement spun Elashi away as a terrier tosses a rat. She hit the ground and rolled up, sword held ready.
No matter. Her distraction had accomplished its purpose. Conan swung his sword back and forth, chopping at the disorganized pikemen, who were at quarters too close to use their weapons effectively. Blue iron met pike wood and sheared it, continuing on to carve bloody canyons through leather armor. Conan's mighty arms drove the weapon he bore, gutting one man, removing another's head, driving all before the Cimmerian whirlwind. Before they could gather their wits, four of the five pikemen were down, one by Elashi's stone, the others by courtesy of Conan's blade.
The fifth pikeman deemed it wise to change occupations at that moment, to that of a fleet-footed messenger; he ran, dropping his pike to attain yet more speed. For an instant Conan considered retrieving one of the fallen pikes to use as a spear against the fleeing man, but decided that dealing with the leader was more imp
ortant. As he turned, however, the rider managed to recapture the horse. Flinging itself onto the saddle, the leader of the bandits spurred the animal, which bolted straight at Conan.
The Cimmerian dodged, swiping at the rider, but the figure leaned away from the sword's arc and Conan cut nothing more than air. The force of the slash spun the young Cimmerian off balance. In a heartbeat, horse and rider were past, moving too swiftly for Conan to recover in time to give chase.
Conan watched the retreating figures of pikeman and rider. Came the rider's call: "I'll have your sword yet, barbarian!"
Conan, shook his head. Why would anyone be willing to risk death for a sword of uncertain worth? In fact, while the blued-iron weapon was of good quality and quite serviceable, it had no intrinsic value. The handle was plain and leather-wrapped, not bejeweled or carved ivory, and the guard was merely a single bar of thick brass. The strange bandit leader must be mad.
Elashi approached, brushing dirt from her cloak.
"Are you injured?" Conan asked.
"Nay." She finished her cloak dusting and looked at Conan askance. "You let two of them escape."
He could not suppress a surprised grunt. "You never mentioned that you desert dwellers drank blood."
"Little point in leaving a job half accomplished," she said. "I suppose there's nothing to be done for it. Let us examine the corpses."
"Examine them? Why?"
She regarded him as she might a simpleminded child. "And you intend to become a thief? For valuables, of course."
Conan nodded at this. For once she had a point. But even as he rifled the sparse purses of the fallen bandits, the question of why they had attacked continued to plague him. And the man-woman's retreating threat to have his sword―what was that all about?
Well, he would pay it no more mind. It was finished and done with, and like as not, he had seen the last of that odd personage.
* * *
Two
The Conan Compendium Page 71
